Sara Cobb, "Empowerment and Mediation: A Narrative
Perspective,"

Cobb investigates and critiques current concepts of
empowerment, and current mediation practices designed to empower
parties. She then suggests a narrative understanding of
empowerment, and describes several mediation practices which
follow from the narrative approach.

Empowerment

Currently empowerment is discussed at two levels. First, the
rehabilitative/developmental model of empowerment focuses on the
level of the individual. From this viewpoint empowered parties
experience increased self-esteem, improved control over decision
making, an increased sense of their own power, and the reduction
of painful emotions.

The social model of empowerment emphasizes the community
level. Community empowerment is thought to be the result of
individual empowerment. Empowered communities develop their own
norms, experience improved community relations, and are better
able to manage diversity.

Critique of Current Concepts and Practices

Cobb asks, What evidence is there that such empowerment is
occurring? Studies generally rely on parties' reports of
satisfaction and sense of power, but Cobb notes that such
subjective reports are not valid measures of empowerment.
Moreover, since the absence of conflict within a community does
not insure the presence of justice, community conflict levels are
not good indicators of community empowerment.

Cobb's own research suggests that mediators seek to empower
parties through three kinds of practices. Mediators seek to
balance power between the parties. They may seek to control the
mediation process. They seek to empower their clients by
maintaining neutrality. Cobb critiques each of these practices.

Mediators and mediation theory more generally tend to define
power as the ability to impose one's will on another. Since we
cannot directly perceive another's will or intentions, we must
infer their intentions from their actions. In seeking to assess
and then balance power between the parties, the mediator
unavoidably subjects the parties to the mediator's own
interpretations of their actions. Cobb argues that this practice
is not empowering, because it usurps the parties'
self-authorship.

Mediators generally distinguish between managing process and
managing content. Managing the mediation process is thought to
empower parties, while managing the content of the mediation
session would be disempowering. Citing other theorists, Cobb
argues that the distinction between content and process is empty.
Managing the process also, unavoidably, affects the content of
mediation. Hence mediators face a dilemma: how can their
management of the content of a dispute be consistent with
enhancing parties' control of their lives?

Finally, Cobb argues that mediator neutrality or impartiality
conflicts with the mandate to balance power and to
"represent the unrepresented interests of the
parties."[p. 249]

A Narrative Approach

Cobb argues that the problems faced by the above practices
stem from the definition of empowerment in psychological terms,
as a feeling. Cobb believes that a communication-based approach
may resolve some of the ambiguity which presently surrounds the
concept and practice of empowerment.

Drawing upon narrative theory, Cobb defines empowerment as
"a set of discursive practices that enhance the
participation of disputants."[p. 250] By participation Cobb
means "the co-elaboration or co-construction of a conjoint
story."[p. 250] Participation/empowerment is necessarily
interactive.

Narrative and Disempowerment

Narrative theory claims that stories do not just describe
reality. Stories or narratives in effect create social reality.
"In mediation, narrative closure or coherence is problematic
because it stabilizes the description of the problem in ways that
delimit its transformation."[p. 251] The task of the
mediator, then, is to destabilize and open up conflict narratives
to permit the development of a conjoint story. Cobb observes that
participation, and hence empowerment, may be constrained by both
the structure of narratives and by the process by which
narratives are created.

Narrative coherence and closure are also problematic when the
parties' ability to produce coherent narratives is uneven.
Stories gain coherence by being more complete, and by resonating
more closely with the dominant culture. A more coherent story
will tend to dominate and marginalize a less coherent one, and so
reduce participation on that party's part. Thus narrative theory
redescribes power imbalances as differing degrees of narrative
coherence.

The nature of the narrative process can also be problematic
for mediation. Parties take turns in speaking when developing a
narrative. Cobb explains that the first speaker is greatly
advantaged in this process. The first speaker gets to frame the
dispute. The second speaker is left in a dilemma. If they submit
to that framing, their participation is diminished, and so they
are disempowered. If they do not respond within that framework,
then their speech seems irrelevant and incoherent, and so their
participation is diminished. Similarly the first speaker may
create a negative description of the other party. Such negative
descriptions de-legitimate and so disempower their object.
Ironically the second speaker's attempts to deny or refute that
negative description will simply tend to reinforce it.

Narrative and Empowerment

Given this narrative understanding of empowerment, Cobb
suggests three mediation practices which should enhance the
parties' participation and empowerment. First, begin the
mediation with private sessions. This will circumvent some of the
problems caused by turn-taking. This also gives the mediator an
opportunity to look for places of lesser completeness or
coherence in the parties' stories. Such places can then be used
to further open up the parties' stories to the possibility of
transformation into a more conjoint narrative.

Second, the mediator can facilitate the construction of
positive descriptions for all participants. While such
interventions are difficult, one helpful tool is the use of
positive connotations. The mediator should seek to impute
positive or non-malicious intentions to both parties when seeking
explanations for their actions.

Finally, mediators should "circularize" the parties'
stories. This technique involves the use of a series of circular
questions. In answering the questions the parties create
interdependence between their stories and themselves. Cobb
includes an example of such a circular series of questions. This
process should be used in both private and public sessions.